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Trade and aid

From
S.A. Boehmer-christiansen, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex

Fred Pearce, on the recommendations of David Pearce and Michael Grubb, takes the advocacy of emission permit trading to cut the amount of C02 industry spews into the atmosphere, a little too seriously (This Week, 21 January). While making economic sense and, in theory, able to “transfer” more advanced technology to the “South” (which is why the UN Conference on Trade and Development is so keen on the idea), the politics of the subject are, alas, inconsistent with the economics.

The industrially developed countries have no intention of “giving” energy-efficient boilers or photovoltaic cells to developing countries, rather …